


If But What Then?

by radikalsheek



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU most probable but a girl can hope., Future, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radikalsheek/pseuds/radikalsheek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apologies for the title, I really couldn't think of one better.</p><p>Apart from the obvious addition, these characters are not mine - they belong to Maggie Stiefvater - and I thank her for them. I do not know if this is where they will end up but it's what I would wish for them, so why not? </p><p>I wrote a Ronan/Kavinsky fic that was bittersweet - how could it be anything but? - and this was the antidote.<br/>Fluffiest of the fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If But What Then?

Tessa O’Neill thought this was by far and away the oddest wedding she had ever attended. 

She had met Matthew Lynch at a charity tennis tournament nearly six months ago and decided that same afternoon that she would marry him someday. Someday being within the next three to five years and no, she had not shared this information with him yet. They had been together since and he was currently spending more time at her Dupont Circle condo than he was in his dorm room at Georgetown where he was in his final year. 

Matthew was the sweetest, most generous, loving man she had ever met and Tessa believed with every cell of her Boston Catholic upbringing that he was an angel. True, she was willing to concede that he was not the keenest of minds she had ever encountered but working in D.C’s juvenile justice system she was surrounded by keen minds and in Matthew she saw something rarer than a sharp mind, a truly good person. 

He had included her in his wedding attendance over a month ago and with some reluctance, she agreed. The reluctance was entirely due to the fact that whilst Matthew had charmed his way through her own extensive family - her father was drooling with plans over Senate runs already although Tessa had no intention of letting that ever happen, she would never let Matthew tangle with the dirt of politics - her own brushes with Matthew’s family had not been so happy. She still shuddered over that hideous brunch with Matthew’s oldest brother. They had met him and his family at Table, sceniest of D.C’s power brunch spots and an impossible reservation. The older couple had been late, worked the room before taking their seats and proceeded to patronize the hell out of Matthew for the next two hours. Matthew, of course, had been oblivious to all of it but Tessa’s protective hackles were out within seconds and she was, even now, quietly proud of her restraint. To be fair, she noticed the genuine affection between Matthew and his eldest brother and she understood Declan’s wariness. Matthew came with the most trusting of natures as well as that hefty bank account but as she and Declan circled in each in complex verbal explorations, she had hoped to gain more of his approval. Tessa, after all, was the one with the D.C. pedigree and contacts. The other side of the political fence from Declan’s own but impressive none the less. Declan’s wife, Missy, a silkily expensive blonde with an overdone Southern accent, she had disliked on sight and further acquaintance had not improved her. If Tessa wished to take a play from one of her snottier relations, she was sure she could have made damning conclusions as to Missy’s own pedigree but Tessa straightened the steel in her spine and refused to go there. Missy had the body of a lingerie model, despite two children, and an attitude that could curdle milk. Tessa was a straight shooter who was never rude to wait staff. Missy dropped comments, as sharp and precise as stilettos, then followed them with a saccharine smile. Matthew beamed back as he devoured everything in sight and chattered with his nephew and niece. Tessa fondled her cutlery and thought longingly of her dubious great aunt who had run away to join the circus as a knife thrower. She should have paid more attention when she’d demonstrated her technique. 

Declan’s son, Sean, was an obnoxious boy of eight trying too hard to be charming. Tessa thought he probably put dead frogs in girl’s lunch boxes and made hideous mixed drinks for unsuspecting adults. She hoped Matthew had never sampled any. No doubt he teased his sister mercilessly…then again, said sister, Maeve, was a self-possessed little girl of six. She had thick, dark wavy hair and a thousand yard stare remarkable in a child so young. She ate quietly and neatly, her blue eyes far away until they focused on you with that unnerving gaze. At the end of the meal, Maeve had suddenly addressed Tessa. “You seem nice”, she informed Tessa, who felt more relief than was logical, “I think you and Uncle Matthew will be good together.” Matthew beamed at Maeve. “I love Uncle Matthew”, continued Maeve “but Uncle Ronan is my favorite.” The girl looked straight at her mother whose face was hard with dislike. “I’m going to live with Uncle Ronan and Uncle Adam one day”, Maeve said. Her mother’s mouth was a thin, hard line. “Adam is not an uncle, by blood or law. He never will be.” Tessa knew who Adam was and since her much beloved older sister had married her girlfriend last year, unless this was a personal dislike, the door to any relationship with her future sister-in-law may have just clanged just shut irretrievably. Glancing up, she caught sight of Declan’s face and her attention was caught immediately by the complex mix of emotions there. Declan Lynch loved his daughter and, in contrast to his wife, there was approval and pride in his look.

That had been three months ago and Tessa had avoided further dealings. Matthew had said that his other brother, Ronan, was very different and she had inferred that Declan and Ronan did not get along. Ronan lived in Virginia, close to their mother and Matthew was annoyingly sparse with details. She had thought he was being elusive but now she realized that was not the case.

He could have talked for hours and never come close to explaining. Some things you just had to see.

The wedding was in the most beautiful of forest settings. The forest, apparently, was owned by his brother, Ronan, who lived nearby at Matthew’s boyhood home, a farm called The Barns. Tessa thought that if Ronan had inherited both this forest and the family farm, Declan might have a case for resentment, but apparently the forest had not come from his father. “Part of the Cabeswater Trust”, said Matthew as if that explained it. She wanted to ask more but then she was meeting his mother. Some warning would have been nice but at least she was looking her best. Aurora Lynch looked like a vision but seemed as kind as she was beautiful. Tessa thought Matthew said she lived here, in her son’s forest, but Matthew was being vague again.

An open sided tent had been erected, a string quartet played. There was abundant food and drink. The groom’s family were all dark suits, fluttery floral prints and red ties. The bride’s side was a cacophony of palettes and styles and people. She wondered how this was going to go. Her attempts to get further explanation from Matthew were interrupted - really, if it had been anyone else, she would have thought he was hiding something - with the arrival of the groom.

The groom and his two attendants were impeccable in dark suits but then a murmur ran through the crowd as the tallest of the three separated to stand on the other side of the center aisle. The gaunt, fair young man was the best man. Matthew whispered that this was Adam. The other, a strapping six foot plus with cropped dark hair and the same nose as Matthew was in fact, Matthew’s brother, Ronan. He was good looking in a completely intimidating way and she could see where young Maeve got her eyes. Tessa suddenly thought of angels, not the cherubic, harp playing sort like Matthew; Adam looked like the stern, judgey one that would greet you at the celestial gates, deciding whether you should pass on to St Peter and Ronan was the sort of angel she pictured from the Old Testament. She had no difficulties imagining him smiting people. Tessa stifled a giggle: she was not a whimsical person usually but something about this setting, these people…Matthew leaned close and told her that Ronan, the smiting angel - stop, she told herself sternly, was the maid of honor. Perhaps she wasn’t being so absurd. 

Matthew was suddenly full of details up as his mother smiled serenely beside them. 

“Ronan and Blue - that’s the bride and that is her real name - traveled together and-“

“Your brother and the bride were together?”

Matthew laughed. “Not like that. They traveled together. He’s been with Adam since they were at school, same with Blue and Gansey but when Adam and Gansey were at Princeton, Ronan and Blue went all over. They started with a project planting gardens in Nicaragua, then diggings wells in Nepal and something with trees in Africa. They went from Mexico all the way to Chile on a motor bike. They traveled in Australia and they worked on all kinds of projects with UNICEF and WHO. They would go away, traveling and working and then come home in the summers. Ronan never went to college, neither did Blue. I don’t know how Ronan got out of that - well, I do - but then eventually they stopped traveling and started the Monmouth Program although they were talking about going to…Cambodia, maybe? Somewhere in Asia. Blue swears Ronan is the best travel companion - maybe because he’s so tall and she’s not? but it turned out they were too busy with Monmouth-”

“Wait”, said Tessa, ‘the Monmouth Program. _The_ Monmouth Program?”

“The one in Henrietta? How do you know about it? I’ve told you about it? They all - well, not Blue, not always - but the others lived in Monmouth when we went to Aglionby. Ronan and Blue convinced Gansey to give them the building so they could start their program.”

“The Monmouth Program?”, said Tessa again. 

“I don’t know if it’s _the_ one but they run classes for teenagers with problems and no money-“

“disadvantaged and at risk youth”, supplied Tessa, “They give them safe residence, counseling, teach them applied and practical skills. Once you complete the program, you spend time giving back to it. Their success rate is phenomenal. Matthew, honey, our social workers keep trying to place kids there but there’s never space and priority is given to kids in state so we’ve been talking about studying and replicating their methods and…your brother works there?”

“Ronan and Blue started it when they got back from traveling. They planned it when they were away. They worked on projects in other countries and then wanted to help kids here, kids who couldn’t afford college or didn’t want to go. They wanted to teach some skills that Ronan said they could actually use - well, he said it with much more swearing - so they offer mechanics, cooking, carpentry, electrical, metalwork, computers, managing money and business stuff. They also have photography, art, music, self-defence and they do farming at The Barns, I’ll have to take you there. I know you have to be back for tomorrow but another weekend, we could-”

“That’d be lovely”, said Tessa, vaguely, overwhelmed with information and sudden close contact with an organization her department had been trying to talk to for months. They either never answered their phone or someone very rude answered and hung up after telling them if they were interested they were welcome to get their asses to Henrietta and see what they did but he wasn’t going to waste time talking about it. 

“Ronan used his own money to start it which Declan was really - I mean really, really - annoyed at but now Declan tells everyone about it.”

“I should imagine”, said Tessa, head still spinning. 

“Declan has helped them,” said Matthew with a hint of reprove, “He helped with some grant approvals and got them resources, even Ronan said so.” 

“Does Adam work there too?” 

“He kind of consulted sometimes but then he was at Harvard for grad school, then working in New York and now D.C. and he also works with Gansey on the ley lines and they travel too-“

Ley lines? 

Everyone was rising with the appearance of the bride who was being given away by her mother. The bride was tiny and beautiful. She was glowingly happy and was wearing a dress that looked like it was made of a hundred other wedding dresses swirled together. It was…unusual but but it suited her and she wore it well. Her hair was adorned with flowers that matched the most spectacular bouquet Tessa had ever seen although the flowers looked too fanciful to be real. The bride’s dress seemed to be amusing the maid - you really couldn’t call him that - person? of honor greatly and he smirked wildly until the glare from the best man stopped him. The bride and groom were oblivious, gazing at each other as all brides and grooms should. The ceremony was performed by an imposing dark skinned woman and it was like no ceremony Tessa had ever been to although the words were lovely. The forest clearing seemed to swell with love and joy and everyone was smiling. Tessa hugged Matthew’s arm. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him and how much she liked being here with him, his mother, his brother and all these wonderful people. A being who consisted of a cloud of pale hair and a lot of lace came forward and gave either a blessing or a reading, her voice was so soft it was hard to tell and it didn’t sound like a reading from any gospel Tessa had ever heard. 

A large dark bird - a crow? raven? Tessa hoped it was not a vulture - flew into the clearing and down to the person of honor’s shoulder with a pouch bearing the rings. Then the bride and groom were kissing and it went on and on, they were kissing as if they might never stop. Everyone was hugging everyone else and Tessa could have sworn that the bridal party was glowing for a minute. Strange triumphant music played that didn’t sound like the string quartet and snatches of a chorus - was that Latin? - and the bridal party seemed surrounded by shadowy figures one of whom was in schoolboy uniform and another dressed in robes like a prophet. She thought she saw someone in white sunglasses and a wife beater but that seemed inappropriate for a wedding. The schoolboy was hugging the bride and stroking her hair but when she looked again, he was not there and the maid - person - of honor was swinging the bride around and around, her dress flying until she thumped him and he let her down to form a hugging sandwich with the best man, the bridal couple between them. They were laughing, laughing and the bride and groom were kissing again. There was food being offered on trays and the groom’s guests were discarding jackets, undoing their red ties and kicking off their pumps to dance in the forest. The best man and the person of honor were now wrapped around each other, that crow? raven? big black bird still on the brideperson’s - that still didn’t sound right - dark suited shoulder. She wondered if they had would have to dance together later as best man and brideperson or if that would not happen. The bride and groom were kissing yet again and the bride’s mother was laughing with the celebrant and the pale cloud of hair and lace. Matthew and his mother were talking to two Amazonian women, one old and one young, both beautiful. This was the strangest, most surreal wedding she had ever been to but it was also the happiest.

Tessa really really needed a drink. Champagne would do but a neat, double scotch would be perfect. She headed toward the side of the tent where she thought the bar might be and ran into a cow contentedly chewing on the grass. It was the prettiest shade of lavender she had ever seen.


End file.
